Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Automatic Pilot

Oh, how I desperately wanted to climb into my car, set the
destination for Davis, turn the car on, and go to sleep.

I was feeling very smug yesterday morning. I had fixed myself a
"couch" on the hotel bed, using my suitcase and one of the pillows to lie
against, and feel like the couch here at home.

And it worked. Except for waking up once in the middle of the
night, I slept nearly 8 hours. It was wonderful.

I fully expected the same thing to happen last night as well.
But we were exhausted when we got home from dinner and while I sat down to write my
journal entry, Lynn went to bed. By the time I got my entry posted, it was only 9:30
and Lynn was sleeping with a blanket over her head to shut out the light. I turned
off the computer and the lights and got into bed myself.

I did go to sleep after listening to my book for an hour or
so, but when I woke up at 2 a.m., I was wide awake. Wide awake. I tried
listening to my book until I got sleepy, but I never did. I finally turned off the
book and tried to get back to sleep, but instead lay on my back staring at the ceiling
wondering when it would be morning. I never did get back to sleep.

When we both woke up, I think we were talked out, finally, because
neither of us said much of anything, going through our morning ablutions pretty much in
silence.

I had suggested we go to Grandma's Kitchen for breakfast. This
was a place that I had seen on the Internet before and which had been recommended by the
women I'd talked with the day before. Having no other restaurant we had discussed,
we went to Grandma's kitchen.

We had a bit of a problem with Tildy (the GPS), who took us to the
wrong end of Fremont Street. It really wasn't her fault, though we
suspected she'd had a night of drinking herself. The web address was on Fremont
Street and didn't indicate that it was really NORTH Fremont Street. The GPS gave us
the option of two Fremont Streets, but did not indicate that one was North (not that we
would have known which one to choose anyway). Instead of driving to the location,
which was quite close to our hotel, we drove all over Monterey before we finally found it.

Whoever started Grandma's Kitchen is a real lover of owls.
The restasurant itself is your standard run of the mill diner, with metal and
linoleum tables, booths, and a counter at the front (with a "beware of Attack
Waitress" sign posted). But the walls are lined with owl kitch. Pictures,
statues, macrame, paintings, etc., etc., etc.

The food was standard diner fare but delicious. We both had
scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns.

The hash browns were perfect, as was everything else. Lynn had
toast, I had biscuits. The biscuits were obviously home made and there were two of
them, but though they were delicious, they were more "solid" than light and
fluffy and even I, the biscuit lover, could not finish one, let alone two of them.

After breakfast, we drove back to the hotel, checked out, packed up
the rest of our stuff and headed for the parking lot. We said our goodbyes and
promised to do it again ... maybe in another six months. Next time we plan to
include our friend Lisa, who said she would love to spend a weekend with us (I've been
kicking myself that I didn't ask her to join us this time!)

Then onto the road. I had planned to stop in Castroville, the
self proclamed Artichoke Center of the World.

I wanted to buy some local artichokes and stopped at The Big
Artichoke, where I remember having lunch with Cousin Nora, on her first visit to the
United States, from Ireland a long time ago. We are all huge artichoke
lovers in this family. On that trip was the first (and only) time I'd ever had fried
artichokes, and I see that they are still serving them.

Nora didn't think much of artichokes in any fashion whatsoever.
I was reminded of an old Little Rascals movie where Buckwheat is served an
artichoke, which he had never seen before. After removing lots of leaves, trying to
find sometehing in it to eat, he said "It may have choked Artie, but it ain't gonna
choke me."

I did buy some artichokes for dinner tonight, and also some
tangerines to eat on the road (since I was completely out of money and knew that
I could not stop for lunch, even though I was so stuffed from breakfast, I didn't see that
as being a necessity!)

The ride home was rough. I finally did stop for a
hamburger I didn't want, just to wake up. I counted out quarters and made sure that
I could pay for the cheapest Jack-in-the-Box plain cheeseburger. I knew I didn't
have enough money to stop for my old sure-fire picker-upper, a McDonald's iced mocha.
But the burger did its stuff and for most of the rest of the drive, I was OK,
though the last 10 miles or so were difficult.

I got home, climbed into the recliner, checked the mail and passed
out for a couple of hours.

So the longed-for weekend is finally over. It was such fun and
I'm so glad we had the time together. I look forward to doing it again!